My Journey Through Photos

People often ask, "Why can't people with depression just pull themselves up by their boot straps and get over it?"
This is my journey through this often misunderstood state and I hope if anything it will make people think about why it is not so simple.

The Beginning

As with most things in life there is usually a beginning. Something that is so profound that it alters the very way we think of life and our place on this material plain. My moment in time was when my father passed away on January 1978. My life went from a simple kid in the city to a arming rural kids that had to learn to grow up and not show how much he hurt inside. I quite living that day and began my journey that is in some ways continuing to this day. Through this painful journey I managed to survive the deepest throws of despair and came out stronger than I ever thought I could be and happier than I thought possible.

The darkness sets in and the way things were are no longer.

It took me until I was 21 to deal with my father's death on a personal level throughout my life until this moment I was always the outsider the one not fitting in. I was like a lone tree that always seemed to be near the forest but always not quite able to make it into the fold of other trees. I was alone and isolated for this time and was dealing with things internally with no real way to release them.

Alone near others but never able to reach the help I so desperately needed and wanted.

The Slide

I wanted out of the feelings of hopelessness and sought refuge in the military. This was an escape from the life I had both with my mother who had shut down and my feeling of not belonging to anything really. The darkness and emptiness haunted me and was always there in the back of my mind. I hoped that going down a path and reinventing myself would be the key I needed to get beyond the torment that I was living with daily. I found some solace but as with all things in life this was short lived as the underlying pain was there and came to take me down. On a dark night my reality finally lost to the pain and the tribulation that I had known for years. I lost who was and the darkness took hold in a way that I pray few have to endure in any lifetime.

The rapids of change closed my mind and I was lost to who I was.

The darkness had finally caught up with me and I tried to end my pain. I sat with a pistol pointed at my head and pulled the trigger, twice. Nothing happened and I simply gave up and started to cry. My relief arrived thirty minutes later and when they cleared my weapon it went off and thus my life was never the same again.

This was almost me except something or someone was watching over me and let me see another day.

I was placed in a hospital and though I do not remember much of what happened I found out later that I was there for over six months. I found my way back to me but realized I was lost and confused as to who I was and where I was heading and nothing seemed to help me. I was a mere shadow and a dark world that had no sympathy for someone who was broken.

Everyone pointed to directions to fix me but no one seemed to care about me.

Over the next few years I wandered through life hoping to see a path out of my pain and only found impassible paths or too distant destinations and so I was trapped in my canyons of hopelessness and saw only cliffs that I was not able to over come.

Though the path could be seen it was still a sheer cliff for me to consider.

I began to notice that I stuck out like a white spot on a black canvas. I was unable to hide the pain and the despair I was feeling. I was sure I simply walked into a room and others could see I was broke and bore a mark that separated me from all the others who deserved happiness.

I saw myself stinking out in a crowd but rather than being a good thing it only added to my despair.

I began to get tunnel vision, the kind that know matter what good comes to my life I could only see the dark end and was never disappointed. My first marriage ended and my ex-wife had my kids this simple tightened my tunnel vision. It is very hard to see anything but the despair and depression become more of who you are than anything else in life.

It is hard to see anything around you once you get to a point that depression is all you know and trust.

The Way Out

My path of healing was when I found people who were willing to wait and help me and allowed me to learn the trust that had been long lost. They helped me get to my mother's and step-father's house and they allowed me to work through some of the problems I was having. They took me to the places and people that I needed to get beyond that pain and I started my long walk out of depression and into a more forgiving light. I started talking to people again and that is when I met my current wife 11 years ago.

I started to see light in my darkness. This allowed me to begin my healing and find the true happiness that I have now.

I married my wife in 2009 and this was after we both agreed that we would be there to help each other through anything we had to. It ahs not bee easy but now that I have again found who I am and come out of the despair that was eating my soul I cannot see myself any other way than I do now. My wife who had been through more pain than me and was also looking for someone to trust allowed me into her life and I allowed her into mine. Now we are a force that allows nothing to get in the middle and work hard to ensure that the paths of communication are always available so that never again see the darkness that was once our lives. She is my hope and I am hers and thus we now have a stronger relationship that most in our own opinions and we are finally happy.